Saharawi
Journalists'
& Writers' Union (UPES)
Saharawi refugee camps
Email: upes@upes.org
01 November, 2006
A Saharawi journalist harassed and intimidated by Moroccan authorities
The Saharawi reporter and journalist, Mr. AbdEddaiem Mustafa (عبد
الدايم مصطفى), reporter to Moroccan newspaper, ElAhdath ElMaghribiya,
was lately victim of a real campaign of harassment, defamation,
intimidation and threat against his physical integrity by the Moroccan
authorities, because of his political position and activism in favour
of the respect of the Saharawi people’s human and political rights,
concordant Saharawi human rights sources reported to the Saharawi
Journalists’ and Writers’ Union.
Mr. AbdEddaiem Mustafa, who is also famous as an active civil society
actor in the Southern Moroccan city of “Zag” and who insists in his
writing on unveiling human rights abuses perpetrated by the Moroccan
State against the Saharawi population in that locality, was recently
threatened by the local authorities and openly intimidated in an
attempt to persuade him stop expressing his opinions and stop
denouncing some Moroccan officials’ crimes and misdeeds.
The Saharawi journalist started a protest action since the 24th October
2006. Human rights sources reported he undertook a first 48 hunger
strike in the popularly-named “Martyr Lehsen Tamek’s Square” in Zag, to
protest against this Moroccan authorities’ irresponsible attitude.
He seized this occasion to express his complete support and solidarity
with the Saharawi political prisoners and human rights activists held
in Moroccan prisons. He also started daily sit-ins since the 24th in
front of the Mayoralty of the small locality with the support of
hundreds Saharawi civilians to protest against the intimidations he was
victim to.
In front of this act of intimidation and violation of journalists’
rights to freely exercise their duty, and to freely express their
opinions, the Saharawi Journalists’ and Writers’ Union, UPES:
- Denounces Moroccan authorities attack against Mr. AbdEddaiem
Mustafa’s freedom of expression and right to physical and psychological
safety.
- Expresses its open solidarity and support to this Saharawi
journalist, paying tribute to his efforts aiming to inform the public
opinion about the reality of a part of the situation in his community
and in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara.
- Condemns the Moroccan authorities’ campaign of defamation
started against the Saharawi journalist aimed to distort the reality
about the real reasons behind such violations.
- Calls on the international community, the UN and also national
and international organisations, especially Medias and human rights
organisations, to break the media siege imposed on the occupied
territories of Western Sahara and south of Morocco, where an important
Saharawi population is suffering all kinds of human rights violations,
including violations of their rights to free expression, opinion,
decent work and other cultural, political, economical and social rights.
The UPES would like to recall all previous violations committed by the
Moroccan authorities against the freedom of expression in the occupied
territories, including violations committed against Saharawi human
rights activist, international delegations, which were not allowed to
enter the occupied territories of the Western Sahara and international
journalists, who were either not allowed in the same territories or
just expulsed and intimidated by Moroccan officials.
UPES estimates that such ill-treatment against independent journalists
should not be tolerated by Medias or international organisations and
should be countered by an international campaign against the Moroccan
State.
UPES would also like to recall that the report published last September
by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the situation in the
Western Sahara, has clearly stated that:
“The question of the right to self-determination of the people of the
Western Sahara is paramount to the consideration of the overall human
rights situation in the respective territories (the occupied
territories of the Western Sahara-Ed). It is a human right enshrined in
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICESCR). The
respect of all human rights of the people of Western Sahara must be
seen in tandem with this right and a lack of its realization will
inevitably impact on the enjoyment of all other rights guaranteed,
inter alia, in the seven core international human rights treaties in
force.”
UPES would thus ask the international community to consider putting
pressures on Morocco to compel it respect Saharawi people’s right to
self-determination and accept the organisation of a free, transparent
and democratic referendum under the auspices of the UN as the unique
way to end the last decolonisation issue in Africa, and to put an end
to all other human rights violations committed by the Moroccan State
against the Saharawi people, both in the occupied territories of the
Western Sahara and in the refugee camps, since the Saharawi refugees
were forced to exile on the first place because of the Moroccan
invasion of their territory.